These guidelines aim at minimising vulnerability to floods and consequent loss of lives, livelihood systems, property and damage to infrastructure and public utilities due to disasters such as floods.

Following the enactment of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, (DM Act, 2005) the Government of India (GOI) constituted the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) as the apex body for Disaster Management (DM) in India with the mandate for laying down policies and guidelines on DM. In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift from the relief centric and post-event efforts to pro-active prevention, mitigation and preparedness driven DM.

The following document reflects this change in perspective from the excessive focus on efforts made after the disaster has occurred to focused, pro active forward thinking and designing of preventive, preparedness driven efforts to tackle disasters such as floods.

The guidelines are presented in the form of the following chapters:

• Chapter 1: Floods status and context
• Chapter 2: Institutional framework and financial arrangements
• Chapter 3: Flood prevention, preparedness and mitigation
• Chapter 4: Flood forecasting and warning in India
• Chapter 5: Dams, reservoirs and other water shortages
• Chapter 6: Regulation and enforcement
• Chapter 7: Capacity development
• Chapter 8: Flood response
• Chapter 9: Implementation of guidelines: preparation of flood management plans
• Chapter 10: Summary of action points

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